Wait, This Was Supposed To Be Boring and Meaningless!

By: Greg | November 1st, 2007

phy I’ve spent a fair amount of pixels on making fun of the Carlsberg Cup tournament. An elephant sized diarrhea has come out of my keyboard, across the interwebs, and onto your screens (all eleven of you) making this tournament into the heaping pile of dung it deserved to be. Until now.

Sure, Fatima were a a fun story with their victory over Bad, Bad Porto Brown on penalties. But at that stage of the tournament it was easy to chalk the loss up to Porto’s inherent indifference and resting of key players for the more important Champions League. So I continued to plod on, bitching about actually having something to waste keystrokes on in the middle of the week. I threw up a sarcasm-ridden preview of the matches yesterday only to have my painfully low expectations pummeled by a couple of compelling matches played out on the temperate tundra…

Penafiel 0 (3) – 1 (2) U.d.Leiria – Leiria won, so my reverse jinx actually only half worked. However, they didn’t win by enough, so Penafiel advance to the next round. This was the least compelling game and match up. Therefore it is gotten out of the way first. If I surmise that eleven total people read this blog, I highly doubt that any of you are Penafiel fans and therefore I will not be offending anyone in sliding past this with the quickness of Crissy Ronaldo with a rocket up his ass and butter on his boots.

Beira Mar 3 (3) – 0 (1) Portimonense – I was one goal off on this prediction. That really pisses me off, since I was really in tune with what I was writing on this particular match.

Fatima 2 (4) – 3 (4) Sporting – What an awesome match. Sporting were down twice in this one only to claw their way back into it. Fatima looked like they were going to continue their David-esque slingshotting in the tournament when Carlos Saleiro opened the scoring on 15 minutes. Liedson answered twenty minutes down the road to bring Sporting level and keep hope alive. After the half, on the 49th minute, Fatima took hold of the reins once again with a defensive miscue in the Sporting back four leading to the ball squirting out for Falardo to mop up from about eighteen yards out. However, Sporting refused to go quietly and much like my wife during any argument, (ahem, DISCUSSION) they had an answer for everything. Substitute Purovic (who came on for the largely ineffective Yannick Djalo) managed to leap up and get on the end of a cross to bang it into the back of the net and send Sporting’s traveling band of fans into excitement filled with anticipation (if you’re wondering, this particular brand of excitement actually sounds a bit like a yell the sixteen year old girls two rows behind you let out as the roller coaster car peaks over the top of the first drop).

With about 25 minutes left to score a third and decisive away goal, Sporting were sloppy in the back yet again on two occasions. However Fatima were not able to convert their crossbar target practice into any bonus points on the score sheet. Then, on the 83rd minute, the man who opened Sporting’s account, Liedson, pulled the ball back from the Fatima defense and slotted one home to make it 3-2. This is how the match would end, sending Sporting into the group stage of the tournament on away goals and ending Fatima’s hope of slaying two giants in a row.

To be fair, Fatima looked the better side for large spells of this game and deserved more than a cab ride home after this. They should hold their heads high for really taking it to a Champions League-level squad.

V.Setubal 2 (3) – 1 (2) Benfica –As opposed to the Sporting-Fatima encounter, this time, the busier and more impressive side got the result. After a cagey first half, Benfica earned a penalty in extra time and *Freddy Adu!* was called into action. In what’s becoming almost as regular as my prune juice chugging grandfather, Adu converted the penalty and Benfica went up 1-0 going into the dressing rooms.

The second half opened and Setubal were playing like a club on a mission. They continued their attempts to crash the wing as in the first half but this time some luck found them on a rebound that Matheus managed to shimmy past Benfica keeper Butt and we were on level terms in the 67th minute. Just when it looked as though we’d be headed for extra time, Setubal struck again. This time, in the 82nd minute, second half substitute Edinho poked in a cross from Adalto. The ten or so minutes leading up to the final whistle were scorching with chances. Adu went close and Edcarlos had too much on a header. Previously spotlighted Bruno Gama had what would amount to the game’s last good chance with a shot that was parried away by Butt. For me, this was a fantastic game with a just result. It is also the first game I have watched in my new apartment with my new dish and my new Portuguese channels. Yippee.

The group stage, which begin in January, will feature two Liga Vitalis clubs in Beira Mar and Penafiel and two BWINLiga sides in Sporting and Setubal. I’d like to say Sporting are favorites to win the whole thing, but this tournament has produced upset after upset, so I’ll spare the Sporting fans the damnation that inevitably comes with me predicting a win for their side.

Completely unrelated post script — Braga sacked manager Jorge Costa a day or so ago, replacing him with youth coach Antonio Caldas. That makes him the fourth manager of the year who’s been given the boot. In fractional terms that means that 1/4 of the league’s clubs now have fired their managers in this young season. The idea of “four” managers being let go doesn’t have quite the same pull as messing with the numbers and saying “25% of the league’s bosses have been shown the door already!” Ah, fun with numbers.

Tomorrow’s another day and another Jornada preview will come along with it. But until that day comes, keep it real brothers and sisters. Make sure to distribute kisses ALL AROUND!!